


burned but not buried this time (who's a heretic now)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: if we're going down in flames (take a bow) [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, BAMF Nancy Wheeler, BAMF Women, Character Death, Domestic Fluff, Happy Ending, Multi, Muttations (Hunger Games), OUR MARRIED TRIO STORMS THE CAPITOL, POV Nancy Wheeler, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, contains the three of them living in a cabin, hey lorata i might have borrowed Claudius bc i love him, i keep more victors alive than suzanne did, just saying, no beta we die like men, no shade to suzanne tho bc i love her work, not the ones you're thinking of tho, uh i don't write action scenes but i tried sorry, world building, your girl didn't forget enobaria don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:15:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: They're not supposed to kill President Brenner. She knows this. That's the mission statement.But as Nancy thinks about the missing finger on Steve's hand, about the scars around Enobaria's mouth from the surgery giving her normal teeth, about Jonathan's prosthetic hand, about Peeta's prosthetic leg, about Katniss' scarred ear, about Finnick and Cashmere and Steve and Nancy's history, she remembers the promise she made to Jonathan in their bedroom. The promise to kill President Brenner for what he did to Steve and everyone else.Nancy is supposed to be the rational one. She's the one who everyone is supposed to be able to count on to make the logical, wise decisions, have the most military logic and training.And she does, really. She knows how to make military decisions that will benefit the most number of people. She knows how to plan an invasion or an attack, how to minimize the collateral damage of an attack.(She is also capable of justifying a great many things to herself.)It was probably a mistake to send Nancy up to the President's office by herself, with no one but Jonathan at her side and Steve by the door.(The final invasion of Two, the Capitol, and the aftermath.)





	burned but not buried this time (who's a heretic now)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scoutshonour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoutshonour/gifts), [lorata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorata/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A District Upside Down: The War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303184) by [lorata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorata/pseuds/lorata). 

> Title is from "Which Witch" by Florence + the Machine, and I'm really hoping that the effort I've put into picking a "fire"-themed title for every fic in this series doesn't seem too pretentious. Ah, well, I've enjoyed it!
> 
> So, we come back to Nancy for the final fic in this series. A cycle of sorts, I guess, and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did.
> 
> So, fuck me if "June" by Florence + the Machine doesn't fucking fit this fic so well. I basically wrote most of this fic to the song, as well as "No Choir" by Florence + the Machine during the epilogue. Basically, Hozier and Florence + the Machine belong to Panem!Stoncy and I don't make the rules.
> 
> Also, I'm currently in the middle on a class on Latin American Revolutions, so there might be a bit more killing-of-your-dictators and justification of violence here than usual. Maybe not. Maybe I put more violence in my fics than I realize. Just saying that I was especially aware of it here.
> 
> Finally, if anyone wants to design a "moodboard" or "aesthetic" for this series, I will be indebted to you until the end of time. I also might scream in happiness. Just saying.

_When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. _

_There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. _

_Think of it--always. _

**-Mahatma Gandhi**

When it comes time for the Rebellion to all enter District 2, Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve are all assigned to Katniss’ propos squad for the actual invasion of District 2. Their wedding propos have elevated their importance to just under Katniss in terms of their weight as symbols for the populace. They aren’t just Victors, now- they are Victors whose love was raised up in direct opposition to the Capitol, whose very love was framed as much as an act of defiance as it was an organic relationship.

To be honest, Nancy logically understands the difference the wedding has given them as political pawns, but she doesn’t feel that different than she did before in terms of her goals towards the Capitol. This ring on her finger means far more to her as a personal advancement than a political one, after all.

Before they head for the battlefield, Nancy tucks the ring into the pouch sewn on the inside of her jacket, next to the two rocks that Jonathan and Steve gave her. She will carry the physical representation of her marriage, of her relationship and dedication and survival, next to her heart as she enters the District she once called home. 

She is still the mountain. She still supports Jonathan and Steve when they fall. She won’t budge in front of the Capitol. She won't hesitate to enter her District, no matter how long it's been since it actually felt like home.

She beat the Capitol once already. She survived to marry Steve and Jonathan, something that she never could have achieved in the Capitol.

Nancy’s days of cowering are done.

Jonathan reaches forward and takes hers in his as they sit next to each to each other on the hovercraft. "We're gonna find your family," he says, and she thinks about her mother, who she barely remembers, about her little sister, born the year after she left for the Centre. She thinks about the fact that she has never met the little girl that Mike has told her so much about over the past few months.

"Can't wait to meet my mother-in-law," Steve says with a grin from the seat across from her. "Met one already, might as well tick off the other."

Nancy's chest squeezes for just a second as she thinks about the fact that neither her nor Jonathan have ever met his parents, and they never will as he was dropped off with his Aunt Stacy when he was only five and he hasn't seen his parents since then. Nancy and Jonathan have met Robin, but they've seen the reports that Stacy Harrington died when the Quarter Quell fell through.

"Hope that it'll happen," Nancy says, because she knows the realistic chances that they'll find her mother and sister alive. She grew up learning the exact statistics of her chances of surviving the Hunger Games. She knows how to logically process death.

"_Also_ can't wait to meet your sister," Steve says, and she knows that he's not really trying to cheer her up, not exactly. He knows the likelihood of finding her family as well. It's more like he's trying to reassure her, in the strangest way, that even if they don't find Holly or Karen Wheeler, that she'll still have a family here, with Jonathan and Steve and Nancy.

"Can't wait to acquire another teenager who adores you?" Jonathan teases Steve with a fond smile.

"Well," Steve says with a grin, "They _do_ tend to show up."

Jonathan snorts. "You're like a surrogate mother."

"Well, as long as my wife and husband are okay with it, I'll adopt all of the children there are," Steve says, "Even if I end up adopting all of my brothers-and-sisters-in-law."

Nancy can't help but smile at Steve, who even in the middle of an invasion is still able to smile and laugh and talk about family in such a light tone. It's a quality much appreciated right now, just as it always is. "If we can find Holly, you can adopt her- if you can go through my mother first."

"I'll be up for the challenge," Steve says, and Nancy's apprehension about taking Two starts to fade, just a little bit, because how can she stay worried, even about war, when Steve is smiling and optimistic like that?

"Well," she says, "Let's hope to find Mom and Holly somewhere along the road to take Two, if only so you can make them fall in love with you as everyone else does."

"You know you and Jonathan will always own my heart," Steve says, "No need to worry, no matter how many people fall in love with me."

And even though it's mostly a joke, Nancy _does_ know. She knows it as instinctually as she knows how to wield a knife.

-

The invasion of Two goes a lot better than expected. Lyme had anticipated mass resistance during her outlining of the plans, but as they enter towns, the propos team often near the front, many of Two’s citizens turn to their side.

But there's a kicker: they don’t go to Katniss Everdeen, the Mockingjay- they follow Nancy Wheeler, the too-delicate Victor, the bird and the mountain in one, Two's only Victor whore.

Because here’s the thing- it’s been years since the brief period she lived in the Victor’s Village, but she is still their Victor. She still trained in the Centre. She is still a Two, deep inside. She is a woman of mountain ore and stone, just like Lyme, just like Enobaria. She is a Victor born and raised and formed by Two, made from the Centre that Two has been sending its kids to for decades now.

Her propos affected the populace of Two in the way that the Mockingjay ones didn't because she is still one of them. She isn’t some outlier who Volunteered for personal reasons- she is a Career who Volunteered for some twelve-year-old she didn’t even know, because that was Two honor and dedication. That was the Two way. That was what set Two Victors apart from the rest of the Districts.

To be honest, Nancy shouldn't have been surprised. Two citizens are raised on a a culture of the honor of Volunteering to protect the innocent- once the citizens of the District realized that protecting the innocent could be better served by helping Thirteen, it would make sense to Volunteer to sacrifice themselves for the rebel army, in order to save the children of their towns.

Then, in one of the poor mining towns, a woman Nancy hasn’t seen in fourteen years pushes her way to the front of the crowds and plants herself there. There’s a teenager whose hand is clutched in her, and Nancy’s looking into the eyes of the little girl who was born the year after Nancy left for the centre. Holly, her name is, as Mike told Nancy when he'd entered the train after getting Reaped. The little girl looks all-too-familiar- she's got Nancy's delicate facial features and her mother's blond hair and Mike's bright eyes.

(Nancy swallows as she realizes that she doesn't know if Holly entered the Centre, if she has any training, if this thirteen-year-old is as familiar with death as Nancy was at that age.)

“I want to join the Rebellion,” Karen Wheeler says, that same stone in her spine that’s in Nancy’s, and Nancy wonders if her mother watched the propos. If she knows what her daughter did, to protect her.

As much as Nancy knows that she must have- practically all of Panem saw it- she almost wishes her mother didn’t. 

Even though her mother sent her away to the Centre, Nancy doesn't hold a grudge against her. That’s the way things are done in Two, after all, and maybe it’s not right, but it’s the best possible solution to a horrible situation. To send kids in trained, who have a shot, rather than just leaving kids to die- to Nancy, that's still the most humane solution any of the Districts came up with in response to the Games.

But her mother knowing about how her daughter survived the Capitol, how she was forced to whore herself out to Capitolites and sponsors, well, knowing that sort of thing about your child isn't something she'd wish upon anyone.

“We’ll be happy to have you,” Peeta says with a welcoming smile, but Nancy’s mother keeps staring at her, and a bit past her, as well, gaze sweeping up and down Jonathan and Steve. 

Now, _ there’s _ a thing that Nancy wishes her mother had been there for, that she wishes her mother and Holly had been able to attend: her wedding to the men that she loves most. That's something that she does wish she could change. As much as she enjoyed having Mike walk her down the aisle, imagining her mother walking her down- well, that would have just a little bit more special.

(Though if there's one thing she's learned over the years, it's that she can't change the past. She has to live with the decisions that she and others have made, for good or bad, and figure out how to move on from there.)

Well, after they take the Nut and the District center, she can introduce her mother to her husbands, find out what her mother really thinks about what Nancy has done in the years since they last spoke to each other.

They just have to take Two first.

-

Steve and Jonathan fight alongside her as they, Thirteen rebels, Two Volunteers, and most specifically the Victor squad take the Two center. Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan all have weapons specially designed for them. It’s the weapons that they’re most effective with, but also weapons that are uniquely designed for them in order to be easily identifiable for the camera crews that Katniss’ squad have brought with them. Jonathan has knives and Steve has a strangely shaped baton with spikes on the end.

When she looks at their weapons, she remembers cannons firing and tributes' faces in the sky and the weight of a crown pressing down on her head. And she really, really doesn't want to, so instead she just focuses on what she has to do to take Two.

Nancy doesn't like fighting the Peacekeepers. Most of them- nearly all of them- are loyal Twos, just like her, just like Enobaria, just like Lyme and Claudius. Every District citizen knows that Twos are loyal. It's just a question of who they're loyal to.

And Nancy is no longer loyal to the Capitol. She doesn't know if she ever was.

She doesn't flinch as she kills the Peacekeepers, as she puts bullets through their heads as they take the Nut, but she does try to minimize the number of them that the squad will have to kill by working with Lyme on battle plans. She doesn't like to kill, but she'll do what's necessary to make the Capitol fall.

-

After the Nut falls, Nancy has a couple of hours to spend with her mother before the squad has to board the hovercraft to take them to the Capitol. Her mother and Holly are set to board a different hovercraft to Thirteen in a few hours, but for now she can talk to her mother and somehow catch up on fourteen years apart.

Nancy can't deny that she's at least a little nervous about the whole thing, but she soon realizes that there's no reason to worry. Karen Wheeler walks up to Nancy, an expression of pride on her face, and something settles in Nancy's stomach.

"I'm so proud of you, Nancy," her mother says, "I know that you don't need to hear it, that it probably won't mean much from someone you haven't known for fourteen years, but I'm proud of you. You have done your District and our family proud."

Nancy doesn't need her mother's approval. She has been surviving just fine without it for fourteen years now. She's grown up in the Centre and later the Capitol. IN a way, Enobaria has done more in a maternal sense in the past seven years than her mother has.

But she can't deny that it feels good, that her mother looks at her and doesn't hate her for joining the Rebellion, for becoming the Capitol's whore. Becoming a killer is something to be expected of Two Victors, a possibility that her mother had prepared for when she'd first given Nancy up to the Centre, but those other two things- those were not things that Nancy expected her mother to accept as easily.

"Thank you," Nancy says with a small nod. 

Then Karen looks over at Steve and Jonathan, who are talking about something on the other side of the landing field. Nancy knows them well enough to know that they have specifically chosen a distance from her that allows them to give her privacy and space with her mother without being too far away to intervene if anything goes bad. 

Nancy wonders what her mother sees when she looks at Steve and Jonathan. If she sees only their Games, of the bloody ways they achieved Victory in an Arena by becoming a child-killer. If she sees her and Steve's propos, in which Steve admitted to sleeping with more Capitolites per cycle than anyone save maybe Finnick Odair. If she sees their wedding propos, sees Nancy and Steve and Jonathan exchanging wedding vows, sees them dancing in Thirteen, sees the way they'd smiled at each other like the very sun rose and set on each others' faces.

Neither Steve nor Jonathan met Karen Wheeler for a moment before they and Nancy got married. Her mother knows nothing about them than what she's seen on TV. That, compounded with the fact that trio-marriages were known but not very commonplace in Two as they were in Seven or Six, could be coloring her mother's perception of the men that Nancy loves more than anyone else in this world.

"Do you want to meet my husbands?" Nancy asks her mother, because she knows that Steve and Jonathan want to meet her Karen.

Karen's clear eyes search Nancy's face for just a moment before she nods. "Of course I do," she says, "They're family, aren't they?"

Just like that. Nancy has to admit that she's a bit shocked by the immediacy of her mother's approval, of her acceptance of Steve and Jonathan so easily.

Nonetheless, she flicks her hand behind her to gesture Steve and Jonathan over. They follow her cue readily, arriving by her and Karen's side.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wheeler," Steve says, endlessly charming, as always, since the day she first saw him in the those chariots. He holds out a hand for her to shake as he says: "It's so nice to finally meet you."

"Steve Harrington, right?" Nancy's mother asks, taking Steve's offered hand and shaking it. "From Seven?"

Steve nods, giving her a wide smile. "And this lovely man is Jonathan Byers, from Six."

Karen looks between them and her eyes narrow slightly on Jonathan. "You're the one who won the Games by copying my daughter's techniques," she says, and Nancy nearly laughs at the expressions on Steve's and Jonathan's faces. They seem to underestimate the fact that her mother's not the typical civilian, like Joyce or Robin- she's from Two, where even the non-Centre kids are taught some basic battle skills and how to observe the Hunger Games growing up. Plenty of Two citizens would have realized just what Jonathan pulled in his Games- both the way that he'd used Nancy's techniques with her knife and his new techniques, like the fire with the mutt.

Which is how Karen turns to Steve and continues with, "And you're the one who built the bat to win the Games," she says, and Steve nods.

"And now we're fighting for the Rebellion," Steve says, barely a sign of discomfort at the mention of the Games that made him a Victor. Nancy has to appreciate how smoothly he diverts the topic, his effortless charm a talent he's had for years. "And we had the honor of marrying your daughter, as well."

Karen looks between Jonathan and Steve again, gaze as calculating as Lyme's can get. "Do you love my daughter?" Karen asks both of them, and Jonathan nods.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with Nancy and Steve," Jonathan says, and Nancy thinks of them talking about their house in the middle of nowhere, just for the three of them. "I can't picture a life without them."

"I love Jonathan and Nancy more than anything," Steve agrees, and Nancy remembers that night at the Capitol gala when he'd first admitted that, after revealing that the reason he stayed a Capitol whore was to protect the two of them.

Karen smiles. "That's all I wanted to make sure of."

Nancy can't afford to get too sappy and sentimental, not less than an hour before they're set to board the hovercraft to invade the Capitol, but she can't help but smile at her mother's easy evaluation and acceptance of Jonathan and Steve. About the fact that her mother only needed to hear one thing- that Steve and Jonathan cared about her and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with her- before she would sign off.

She guesses that there are few good moments in the middle of war.

-

Nancy's moment of euphoria is lost, though, when Lyme walks up to her in the hovercraft on the way to the Capitol, face hard. 

"Nancy," Lyme says, "They destroyed the Village. Every Victor save the ones in Thirteen died in the bombing."

Nancy's heart plummets to her feet, and she can only imagine how Lyme feels. Nancy lived in the Village for only a few months, and then her only contact after that was at the Victory Tour or when one of the Mentors would visit the Capitol for the Games.

She thinks about the Victors she knew only for her brief trips back to Two for the Victory Tour. She thinks of Brutus, patient and honorable, Devon, flirty and generous, Emory, stalwart and kind, Artemesia, fierce and mad as Enobaria, Callista, sexy and proud, Ronan, older and guiding.

All of those graduates of the Centre. All of those Volunteers, who went into the Centre with different motivations but went into the Games knowing the exact likelihood of dying. All of those killers who survived the Arena and built themselves lives in the aftermath, learned to pick themselves up through blood-stained nightmares, recovered together with the help of their Mentors, who put them back together after they were torn apart in the Arena.

She thinks about Enobaria and Lyme, whose Mentor Nero died in that explosion. She wonders how her own Mentor is coping with that loss, whether she's burying her grief deep or letting madness take over or thirsting for vengeance or just going numb.

Nancy closes her eyes for a moment, picking through grief and towards logical thinking. Into thinking about the mechanics of the attack, into finding some way to make sense of the atrocity.

"Who did?" she asks, and Lyme understands her open-ended question.

"They say it was the Capitol," Lyme says, but Nancy went through the same training that Lyme did. She knows hedged answers and the meaning behind the way a sentence is constructed.

_They say_\- that means that Lyme doesn't quite believe it. That she has serious doubts as to which side perpetrated the massacre. That she seriously thinks that the Rebellion had something to do with it.

And to be honest- Nancy doesn't have trouble believing that Coin might have committed such an atrocity. Coin's always been ruthless, verging on a dictator from what Nancy has seen of her. She has had next to no care for collateral damage in any war meetings, only focused on what will take the Capitol and turn the country over to Thirteen.

If Coin saw a propaganda reason to destroy the Village, then Nancy doesn't doubt that she would take it.

"We'll make them pay," Nancy swears, and Lyme holds her gaze for a long moment. "I'll find whoever destroyed the Village and make them pay."

Billy just died a couple of months ago in the invasion of Eight, and he was the last non-Village Victor left.

Nancy and Lyme- the two of them are two of the only Five Victors still alive from Two. There are just Lyme and Enobaria, so different in their styles and motivations but the only two Victors Nero ever pulled out of the Games, then their Victors in Nancy and Claudius, Victor-cousins of sorts. 

"I'll be glad to help you out," Lyme says, sealing a sort of pact between them, to be fulfilled some time after the Capitol's been taken.

-

The invasion into the Capitol is fifty times worse than the one into District Two. Yes, District Two was Nancy’s home, and there was anxiety over that, but at the end of it she got to see her mother. She, Jonathan, and Steve emerged with only a few scratches, scrapes, and a small bruise on Steve's upper thigh from a baton hitting his leg. Nancy got a glimpse at the town of her childhood, still remarkably intact. The news about the Village came afterward, in the aftermath- the actual invasion wasn't clouded by bad memories.

But this, the Capitol- it's different. Yes, she called this place home for six years. Her apartment, situated just a couple of miles away from the Games Complex, is the place she lived for six years, with only the annual trip back to Two for the Victory Tour. She bought an apartment with a pool on the roof, picked out that bed and the sofa, chose the blankets. She made that apartment as much of a home as it could be while she lived here.

But there are no people here that she really cares about. The Capitol has a few fond memories, yes, but they were built on the two people fighting by Nancy’s side. The rest of the Capitol is a haze of the Games and of being whored out, of having her mind and body ripped from her and trying to keep everything together by just focusing on the small sanctuary she'd built in her apartment, with Steve and Jonathan. 

And, of course, there are the mutts.

Nancy hasn’t really had to deal with mutts since her Games. She’s seen them in the Games over the years, watched over screens as tributes had to battle them and sometimes died by their teeth and claws, but she hasn't dealt with them face-to-face since those nights in the Arena, with her blood thrumming against the bandage wrapped around her hand and her breath pounding in his ears.

But right now, invading the Capitol, there are mutts coming after her and the rest of the squad. There's a variety of them, from dog-based to reptile-based to some where she can't even begin to identify the base breed of the mutt. They're like monsters from her nightmares, ripped from her head and made flesh on the battlefield in front of her.

At least there’s the fact that this time around, she has a gun to shoot them in the face with. That's rather reassuring as they encounter a mass of mutts on one street on their squad's particular path to the President's Mansion to take the President alive for trial.

They carve their way through the mutts, and it's horror of a kind that Nancy hasn't felt for years as she shoots them and cuts them with her knives, but it's also satisfying, in a way. She's surrounded by Victors who must be taking the same kind of satisfaction as she is, in being part of a group that can carve their way through mutts like a solo tribute couldn't exactly do in the Arena.

Everything goes even further to hell when someone's scream pierces the air from behind Nancy.

At first Nancy can’t tell who’s screaming. She knows that it’s someone she cares about, knows she recognizes the voice, but she can’t place it at first.

Then Jonathan takes off running, carving his way through mutts in order to get back, an almost crazed look in his eye, and Nancy knows that he wouldn’t run like this if it wasn't-

Dustin, Will, Mike, Erica, and Robin are all still in District 13. Max and Lucas are somewhere else on the battlefield in the same troop together.

But Jane- Jane's here on the battlefield with the squad. She’d only been allowed on this mission because of her skills with a bow, which rival Katniss’. She’s the only non-Victor on the team save Kali. (Though to be honest, the question of who would have won the Quarter Quell has a clear answer, in Nancy's opinion, no matter how much Max has developed as a soldier. It would have been Jane, if she wouldn't have sacrificed herself to let Will live.)

Jane’s been a force of nature this whole time, taking down as many soldiers with her bow as Nancy has with her gun, despite Jane’s more secluded position near the back of the group, bracketed by Finnick and Steve. Enobaria is right next to Katniss in the middle, while Cashmere, Jonathan, and Nancy have been near the front.

And if someone's screaming towards the back, and Jonathan's running- it must be Jane. 

Nancy takes off after Jonathan, Steve chasing right behind her. He slams his bat into the heads of mutts as Nancy shoots through them all. Behind them, Enobaria, Finnick, Katniss, Kali, and Peeta take out the last of the mutts behind them as Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve arrive by Jane's side.

Cashmere is squatting above Jane, the mutt’s head lopped off by one of her blades, so at least the monster's gone. The problem with Jane is immediately obvious, though- the mutt’s claw is still wedged into Jane’s leg, blood oozing out from the gaping wound.

“I'll help get her to the medics,” Peeta says, immediately dropping down by her side, and at first Nancy’s ready to protest. He’s the accidental Victor, who just went along for the ride. He's not a killer, not like the rest of them. But then she looks behind him and sees that the last of the mutts have been destroyed, so Peeta must have taken out at least a few of them. "You guys can go on alone."

"Me too," Kali, the proven soldier, says with a small smile as she heads up to them, though her concern over Jane is clear. "You don't need all of us, and Peeta, you need someone who can fight and protect the two of you."

Jonathan kneels down next to Jane as Kali helps Peeta wrap an extra bandage around her leg to help prevent bleeding going forward. "You all good with them, Janie?" he asks her, and she gives him a pained smile.

"I trust 'em, Jon," she says, "They got it."

So Jonathan nods at Peeta, and Nancy knows how much that means. She knows how much it takes for Jonathan to learn to trust someone, to put his family in the hands that aren't his own. He must be putting the urgency of the situation over his need to be right by his siblings' sides.

"Then let's get going," Nancy says, because she's trained for logic. She's trained not to dwell for too long, not when a mission needs to be completed.

Jonathan stands up with a final nod to Jane. "I'll see you soon," he promises, and she nods back at him.

"Kick the President's ass, Jon, Steve."

"Will do, Jane," Steve says with a small salute.

"What my idiot said," Jonathan says, giving his sister a small smile, and then they head out to the next street.

-

There’s a plan, for getting into the President’s Mansion. Their goal is to capture President Brenner and bring him back to District Thirteen for trial, by District Thirteen laws. 

There are to be no assassinations. They are not to take out years of pain and rape and death on the man who orchestrated the last couple of decades of Hunger Games. They are to be calm and level-headed and complete the mission properly.

And Nancy is pretty sure that she can trust nearly everyone on the team to carry out that mission properly. All together it should be easy to secure the President (well, not _easy_, per se, but easy enough. About as easy as winning the Hunger Games, and they've all done that at least once before).

Too bad all of their plans get shot to hell when they get three streets from the Presidential Mansion and they’re set to pass through the street that the parade usually goes down, all the way to the main government building. Bombs have taken out most of the stands and the screens, though a few screens stand unbroken by the war.

They should be in the clear. They should be good. They’ve figured out how to set off most booby traps- just getting Peeta and Steve to toss forward large stones tend to set them off far enough in the front of them that no one gets anything worse than a small burn. They haven't encountered any more mutts after the first swarm, thank Panem, and Nancy almost gets lulled into a sense of security.

But then the screens all turn on, over top of the completely empty stands, and an all-too-familiar tune starts to play- one that Nancy has made sure to never let anywhere near Steve for a couple of months now.

Nancy whips around to find Steve lunging towards Katniss, the closest Victor to him, and she immediately runs forward, but he’s toward the back of the group. She’s too far away to get in between them in time, because she can't shoot him, can't kill her husband-

But this time, it’s Jonathan who pulls Steve off Katniss, but then there’s Enobaria, who managed to slice open Finnick’s side before Cashmere bowled her over and pinned her down. Now, Enobaria and Steve are thrashing, kicking, and fighting against their holders, and Nancy swallows back bile as she has to decide which one of them to go after, her husband or her Mentor. They’re both Victors, proven killers, deadly without reservation.

Then Steve’s fist sinks into Jonathan’s cheek and Nancy knows who to finish running toward. She runs to Steve, holstering her gun as she does so, even as she frantically calculates the best way to minimize damage.

There’s no way to get all of the screens and speakers to turn off, unlike her kicking out the screen in their room back in the base the first time the triggers went off. They have to wait out the end of the propos, wait out President Brenner, and Nancy doesn’t know if they can hold down two homicidal Victors at once. Steve and Enobaria both had high kill counts in their respective Games, are both deadly with their weapons. They've got the skills and the drive to do massive damage.

Nancy knows that she has to lower the number of Victors they have to hold down. So as Nancy holds Steve there, she presses her thumb to the weak spot on his throat, the pressure point that will knock him out for a few minutes.

She doesn’t cry. She was trained for years not to, after all. She knows as well as the back of her hand how to control your responses to extreme situations.

But as she chokes the air out of her husband, she really wants to. She understands why others would.

This isn’t something she should be doing. She shouldn't be hurting the man she just swore not even a month ago that she would love and cherish until the end of their lives. She shouldn't be knocking unconscious the man who she promised 'til death do us part.

But this is war, and this is what's necessary, and Nancy's trained to do what's necessary. She's trained to be able to block out personal feelings and regrets in order to be able to accomplish what some might consider monstrous.

Steve slumps against her hold, going unconscious, and Nancy tries to let him fall as gently to the ground as possible while also pulling her gun back out of her belt to guard the area as she steps just a little to the side to help Jonathan back up with her free hand. She searches Jonathan's face, trying to gauge how bad the damage is.

"You good?" she asks, and his eyes flick over her even as he grimaces in pain, his free hand ghosting over his own cheek, evaluating for damage.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he says, but his worried gaze is fixed on the man by Nancy's feet. Jonathan squats down next to Steve as Nancy looks up around them, her blood going cold as she realizes what position they’re in. They’re vulnerable. They’re out in the open, trying to get Enobaria and Steve to stop fighting, and they're open to attacks.

So Nancy keeps her gaze systematically searching the area and her gun up, guarding them all as Finnick gets up from his position on the ground, hand clutched to the wound at his side, and Cashmere and Katniss deal with Enobaria. Jonathan runs a hand through Steve's hair, where his hat has disappeared from, and Nancy's heart aches momentarily at the fact that the Capitol keeps perverting this relationship between them all.

When the propos finally end a minute later, Nancy is faced with six exhausted Victors. Finnick, Cashmere, Jonathan, Steve, Enobaria, and Katniss are all aching and wounded, with Enobaria’s knives making decent wounds on Cashmere as she fought, and Steve landing that decent punch against Jonathan.

Enobaria’s return to herself is swift- barely a blink before she stops fighting with Cashmere and instead just slides out from under her. Enobaria's gaze is hard as she looks around, gaze quickly calculating what happened. 

She doesn't apologize. She just nods at Cashmere, offering up a curt, “Thanks,” which Cashmere acknowledges with a nod in return.

Steve begins to stir on the ground, eyes slowly blinking awake. As he lifts himself up on his elbows, he glances around, instincts honed years ago in a very different Arena coming into focus as he surveys the area around him. His gaze catches on Jonathan's face and halts as Steve flinches. "Jonathan-" he starts, but Jonathan just shakes his head and takes the briefest of moments to lean over and kiss Steve's forehead.

"Not you," he says, not a doubt in his voice. "Not your fault."

Steve looks like he still wants to protest, but he nods as he stands. "Let's get out of here," he says. "Let's get this over with." He and Jonathan entwine their fingers for a moment before letting go.

"To the President's Mansion?" Jonathan asks, turning to look at her, and she is ready to nod but Finnick interrupts first.

"I don't-" Finnick looks down at his side and winces. There's a pretty deep gouge there, one that's not exactly life-threatening but definitely movement-impeding. "I'm just going to hold you guys back."

"The fuck, Odair?" Cashmere immediately snaps, bright eyes narrowed, and Finnick nods.

"Can't exactly run like this," he says, "I can hold my own in a fight, but not move too well. I'll duck off into a side alley while you guys save the day, alright?" He winks at her. "Promise I'll see you on the other side."

"You better fucking live," Cashmere says, and it's the most raw Nancy has ever seen the ever-confident and poised daughter of District One.

Finnick lets out a low laugh and nods. "Don't worry, dear," he says, "I will."

Katniss looks to Enobaria, Steve, Nancy, Cashmere, and Jonathan. "So it's just the six of us, then," she says, and to her credit, her voice doesn't shake.

"Just down to six of us," Nancy confirms. "Let's move out."

Enobaria bares her white teeth to Nancy. "Sounds like a plan." 

-

When they finally get to the entrance of the President's mansion, Cashmere starts making orders. 

"You three go upstairs," Cashmere says, "We'll stay to take out the guards here and secure the premises."

"You sure you can handle it?" Steve asks, always concerned, and Cashmere smirks, pulling out twin daggers from their hilts on either side of her hips.

"Don't worry, pretty boy," Cashmere says, "The Mockingjay, 'Bari, and I can handle it. We've got the experience."

Enobaria flicks her staff out in front of her. "I _will_ murder you after Odair gets to see you again, Vere."

Cashmere winks at Enobaria. "Don't worry, I know you will. Only person you let call you that is pretty boy Seven."

Katniss ignores the Career banter and just nods, nocking her bow. "It's just the final Arena," she says to Nancy, "We can take care of it."

Nancy isn't sure exactly why Katniss is giving up the opportunity to go after Brenner, but there's not time to question it. Instead, she just glances back at Steve and Jonathan, who nod at her. She looks back to Katniss and nods. "Sounds like a plan," she says, "Meet you three here afterward."

So Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve storm their way up the stairs and into the President's office, and it's almost pitiful how easy it is to take out his guards compared to the lengths they had to go to in order to take the mansion itself. They take out all of the guards in front of the room and in the room easy, Jonathan's knives and Steve's bat and Nancy's gun and knife against the guards, and it ends with Nancy's gun against President Brenner's chest with Jonathan and Steve standing perpendicular to the door with their weapons raised, an equal view of the outside of the door and of her and the President.

They're not supposed to kill President Brenner. They're not. She knows this. That's the mission statement.

But as Nancy thinks about the missing finger on Steve's hand, about the scars around Enobaria's mouth from the surgery giving her normal teeth, about Jonathan's prosthetic hand, about Peeta's prosthetic leg, about Katniss' scarred ear, about Finnick and Cashmere and Steve and Nancy's history, she remembers the promise she made to Jonathan in their bedroom. The promise to kill President Brenner for what he did to Steve and everyone else. 

Nancy is supposed to be the rational one. She's the one who everyone is supposed to be able to count on to make the logical, wise decisions, have the most military logic and training.

And she does, really. She knows how to make military decisions that will benefit the most number of people. She knows how to plan an invasion or an attack, how to minimize the collateral damage of an attack.

(She is also capable of justifying a great many things to herself.)

It was probably a mistake to send Nancy up here by herself, with no one but Jonathan at her side and Steve by the door. No one in this room with President Brenner save the three of them.

(No one who would stop her. No one who _could_ stop her.)

"You wouldn't, Miss Wheeler," President Brenner says, that smug smirk on his face that he used when he threatened Steve at that gala at the Trinkets' house, when he used Jonathan and Nancy to get Steve to allow the Trinket's nephew to fuck him, when he let Steve be _raped_ just to feed his bottom line. "You know that my death won't benefit your cause at all."

Well, guess fucking what? In this moment, her cause has nothing to do with the Rebellion and everything to do with the two men behind her, who she loves with everything she has, who love her with everything they have. Her cause is the fact that he made them killers and monsters and whores without remorse, that for two decades he turned children's minds and bodies into human capitol.

She knows that if President Brenner lives, he'll find a way to inflict all of that misery again. He'll find a way to worm his way into everything using that silver tongue of his, find a way to restart every nightmare again. He'll trap her and Steve into a cycle of horror, force Jonathan away from them. He'll turn children into murderers of other children.

She can't risk that. She _won't_ risk that.

Nancy's a killer for many reasons. Because she trained, because she cut her hand, because she carved into the backs and chests and necks of children in an Arena. Because she shot the Peacekeepers in the battlefields across the country, because she was able to take down her own husband- but first and foremost because she had something to fight against. The Centre only existed because of the Games. Without the Games, who knows how she might have grown up. Her schooling would have taught her how to mine or history or how to be a schoolteacher or a politician or a scientist rather than a Victor.

This man handed her the weapons that made her a killer all those years ago. It's only right that he receives them.

"Watch me," Nancy says. Then, without flinching, she lifts up her gun from his chest and pulls the trigger, putting a bullet right between the President's eyes.

-

It's been three hours since Nancy killed President Brenner, and she still doesn't feel guilty about it. Instead, she's still feeling the same sense of relief she did from the moment Cashmere showed back up with a still alive Finnick and Kali and Peeta had showed up with Jane, whose wound had been bandaged. (Katniss had kissed Peeta in relief when he'd arrived, fussing over his bruised face and his limp from fighting without her, and he'd just given a helpless laugh and kissed her back. It was honestly kind of nice to see their reunion.)

Nancy can finally breathe free. The Capitol's been taken. The war's over. The Rebellion _won_, after everything. There were some deaths along the way- every child who ever died in the Games, Beetee, Gloss, Billy, the rebel soldiers, so many of Two's Victors in the bombing of Two- but now, there won't be any other deaths. There won't be any more Games.

She sits down on the steps of the Presidential Mansion, Steve on her right and Jonathan on her left. They're all three still in their District Thirteen fatigues, but their rings are out on their hands. The invasion's over, after all- she can see rebel soldiers throughout the streets branching off of the main circle. They're sorting through rubble, dealing with the last of the surrendering Capitolites, and distributing the news that the President is dead.

"So," she says, "What do we do next?"

"Well, what about that house Johnny Boy wanted?" Steve asks, giving Jonathan a grin across her. Jonathan gives Steve a smile in return, squeezing her hand, and Nancy passes the squeeze onto Steve.

Their hands are calloused and worn in hers. They aren't soft like they were when the Capitol was constantly Remaking them- no, fighting a war has carved out parts of them. It has scarred them in a way that the Games did, but this time around they've been allowed to keep their flawed skin.

The three of them- they're far from perfect. They'll always be killers and monsters and broken children who had to grow up too fast, who fell in love in the middle of some of the worst circumstances imaginable.

But they're also survivors. Survivors who are kinder than the world ever was to them. Survivors who are set on living peaceful lives after this, lives free from war and prostitution and child murder.

Steve and Jonathan- she may be the mountain, but they're hers. They're her support when she feels hollow, the tree that she leans against and the train that keeps pushing when she feels like flagging.

"Sounds good to me," Nancy says with a smile. "Where do you want live?"

"Well, I'd prefer somewhere with woods," Steve suggests, voice low and starting to flag from exhaustion. "If that can be arranged."

"I've had enough time around cities to last me a lifetime," Nancy admits.

"We'll never have to live in a city ever again," Jonathan says. "No one can make us." Then he leans over and kisses her cheek, soft and gentle and tender as their first night together. This time, though, carries the weight of years of a relationship, of knowing each other at their worst and still deciding to stay, to promise their lives to each other. "We've won," he says, the weight of near decades in his voice. "We're free."

"I love you two idiots," she says, fond and tender as she squeezes their fingers between hers, one of each of their hands on either of her knees, and it's like they're back on the sofa in her apartment but this time there's no Games on the screen or a blanket across them but rather just cold stone under their legs. Still, she can't help but prefer this lack of a weight on her shoulders to that apartment, constantly suffocating under the weight of Capitolite appointments. 

"We love you too," Steve says, resting his head on her shoulder. His exhaustion is clear in his limbs, and she supposes that the final rush of adrenaline from taking President Brenner's house has finally worn off, revealing the exhaustion underneath.

Sometimes it's hard to believe just how strong Jonathan and Steve are. Steve's mind was jacked earlier today and he _still_ helped sweep the President's mansion. Jonathan's sister was taken down and Jonathan still managed to go forward and fight as hard as ever.

They're Victors for a reason. It's not just because they've got that killer instinct- it's because they're willing to do whatever it takes, no matter what, to get the job done. To keep going, even when it looked like they had no shot at surviving. To stare down death itself and say _fuck that_ and keep fighting.

"Nancy," Jonathan says, voice low and quiet. "Thank you."

Nancy raises an eyebrow. "For what?"

"For killing him."

Simple, plain, blunt- as easy to speak the words as it was to put that bullet between the President's eyes.

Nancy has worried for years if killing came too easily to her, if making decisions that ended people's lives without remorse made her a bad person. If being able to logically figure out how to kill the Career pack, how to sink her knife into the flesh of children, how to take down the highest number of Peacekeepers, how to kill the President, made her a monster.

She thinks it did, at the end of the day. But she also thinks that being monstrous isn't the worst thing in the world, if you can use your monstrosity to protect others.

So Nancy nods. "I promised I would," she says, "And to be honest, I'd do it again."

"So would I," Steve says, head moving slightly as he does so. He lost his hat a long while ago, maybe somewhere in the fight with the mutts, and his short hair is brushing against her neck, feeling almost the length it did when he first moved in with them. "If I had the choice."

"Same here," Jonathan agrees, and Nancy sits in that realization for a minute. Of that knowledge of them as killers, of their lack of remorse towards the death of this man. (Toward the _murder_ of this one man.)

And she finds that it doesn't change much save making her understand even clearer why she married these two men. Why she knows that no matter what, they'll understand and never judge her, never once look at her in disgust or horror. They will understand her motivations, understand the blood staining her hands.

There's are so many reasons why this ring is on her finger, why she carries rocks given by both of them in her jacket. And while plenty of them are pleasant- she likes cuddling with them, cooking with them, having sex with them- many of them are based in the less pleasant, like their shared kills and nightmares and understanding of what it's like to be crowned with weight of children's deaths on your shoulders.

"They want you three inside," a familiar voice says from behind Nancy, and Nancy turns, gently dislodging Steve, to find her mentor standing on the steps above them, arms crossed over her chest in seeming nonchalance. Enobaria's frowning, though, which gives Nancy pause.

"Why?" she asks, brow furrowing, and Enobaria sighs.

"Good ol' Coin wants all of the living Victors together," Enobaria says, "She says it's to discuss President Brenner's death and make one last decision regarding the fate of the Capitol's children."

Now, that can't be a good thing. They'd told the rebels that Brenner had accidentally been killed in the crossfire, that by the time they'd managed to take down Brenner's guards they had found Brenner laid out, accidentally taken out by one of their bullets.

"Alright," Steve says, gaze sliding just a bit in her direction. He's always been the one of them with the easiest time appearing nonchalant in situations that are anything but casual. "Let's hear what the President has to say." He stands, carefully tugging Nancy's hand along with his movement, thus bringing Jonathan along as well, still holding her hand on the other side.

Well, it looks like they're going to see what President Coin has to say about this all- even if Nancy has a very bad feeling about all of this.

\- 

Sitting around this table are Finnick, Cashmere, Haymitch, Enobaria, Katniss, Peeta, Steve, Murray, Jonathan, Lyme, Claudius, and Nancy herself. Haymitch and Murray came from the command center based in Two, as did Lyme and Claudius, all summoned for whatever discussion Coin wants to have.

Not that many survivors, to be sure. There were plenty of dead Victors before the war, and plenty were killed by one side or the other during the war. Gloss and Beetee died invading the Capitol, after all, on this final push. But there are still _some_. 

They are here, alive despite it all. They are maimed and broken and monstrous, but they are _here_. The eleven of them, survivors of monstrous Arenas, child-killers and war heroes all.

"I have declared myself interim president in the aftermath of Brenner's death," President Coin starts with, and a cold shiver comes down Nancy's back at Coin's words. Interim president? Nancy didn't get chosen as a Volunteer because she was a fool. She knows media manipulation and politics just as anyone who was trained in the Academy- that is, probably a bit less than Cashmere in One, but still plenty. She knows that "interim" does not designate a specific time period.

"For how long?" Enobaria asks, probably thinking along the same lines as her Victor- and probably thinking about the Village in Two, too, about the fact that they still don't know who killed all of those Victors, who destroyed Enobaria's home.

"It's clear that the people are far too emotional right now to make a rational decision. We'll revisit for elections when the time is right," Coin says. "But I have called you here for a far more important vote. A symbolic vote. Brenner may be dead, but hundreds of his accomplices await their deaths. Peacekeepers, torturers, Gamemakers. But the danger is that once we begin, the rebels will not stop calling for retribution. The urge for blood is a difficult urge to satisfy. So, I offer an alternative plan. The majority for will approve it, no one may abstain. The proposal is this: in lieu of these barbaric executions, we'll conduct a final Hunger Games, with the tributes Reaped from the children of Capitolites."

That cold shiver down Nancy's spine turns into a bucket of ice water crashing on her neck. If they approve that idea, then- 

Nancy knows blaming people. She knows guilt. She knows hating yourself for what happened, knows dreaming in blood and the glint of weapons and the boom of cannons. She knows nightmares and waking up with screams trapped between your teeth. She knows holding Steve through the times where he hated nothing more than himself, knows the cold numbness in Jonathan's eyes when the Games were on, knows reassuring both that it wasn't their fault.

She knows not to blame the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. She knows not to blame the other Victors for what they had to do to survive the Capitol's terrible Games. She knows that she wouldn't wish her and Steve and Jonathan's fates on anyone. 

Nancy thinks about all of those dead children, the children that she grew up watching die in the Arena, the children who died after she left the Arena. All of the children who didn't leave the Arena.

She thinks, as she has tried not to for years, about Barb. About Nancy's best friend, the girl in the year above her in the Centre, about the girl with the bright smile and the determination to succeed and the proficiency with a sword. She'd been torn apart by tentacle-mutts, but only after killing two outliers in the Bloodbath. The girl from One had put Barb out of her misery, only to be killed by the girl from Nine a few days later. And that's how the cycle had continued for years and years, with no sense of justice or order to it.

Killing President Brenner was a form of justice. Killing the children of the Capitol in one last act of horror would never be justice. It would be terrible and unjustified by any stretch of the imagination. It would be criminal. It would be murder.

"No," she says, calm and loud, the first person at the table to respond, because they haven't even officially started taking a vote yet.

"No?" President Coin raises an eyebrow, and Nancy nods.

"No," she repeats, as unmoving as a mountain. She can justify anything to herself, but she won't justify this. She _can't_ justify this, or she'll become just like President Brenner. She'll become just like Coin, with her lethal gray eyes and disregard for human life.

"No," Nancy repeats, "I will never endorse another Hunger Games. No children deserve to die, no matter their parents, and no children should ever have to become killers, not if we can prevent it. We're supposed to be building a better world, after all."

Jonathan immediately follows her, just like he always has, with a nod. "It's injust," he says, short and sweet.

"We can't hurt children," Steve says, the third in their trio, hands clasped above the table. His ring winks in the light of the windows of this room that President Brenner once threatened her in, must have once threatened him in as well. "There has been far too much bloodshed already."

Murray shrugs. "Lovebirds are right," he says, "War should've had a point, right?"

Enobaria stares directly at Nancy as she says, "I vote with my Victor." No explanation, no justification, just that slightly mad look of hers with a slight flash of her white, normal teeth. 

Lyme nods. "It wouldn't be right," Lyme says, "Subjecting children to the torture we were forced to go through. We cannot begin the new government with just more of the old."

Claudius looks to his Mentor as he always has, as a son looks at his mother. His relationship with Lyme has always been far closer, far more parental, than Nancy's with Enobaria. "This can't be what we're about," he agrees, "Murdering children and all."

Cashmere looks like it's paining her to agree, and Nancy gets it, she does- Cashmere's brother just died earlier today, after all- but Cashmere nods anyway. "I'm against it," she says. "I don't want others to suffer like we did. To find themselves in a world where human bodies become commodities and children know that they'll have to grow up far before they ever become adults."

Finnick nods, following his girlfriend. "Kids shouldn't have to be whores. No matter their origin, they shouldn't have to be forced into sex and violence for the sake of a hungry public."

Then it comes to Katniss, who's probably the most politically important part of this. She _is_ the Mockingjay, after all, the only person with more propaganda power than Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve. This little girl, this seventeen-year-old, is who the fate of the nation rests on the shoulders of.

Nancy can't help but hold her breath as Katniss looks to Nancy, then Jonathan, then Peeta. "I vote no as well," she says, staring at her boyfriend, who nods as well. "We can't force innocents to die, to become monsters, just because of our need for revenge."

"You heard the girl," Haymitch says, with just a small quirk of the lips towards Nancy, and Nancy suddenly understands why District 12's oldest Victor gets along so well with Murray. "She's got a point." 

And that's all of them- a no from every single living Victor. A sign of unity between Victors of the likes that Nancy has never seen in her lifetime. Victors from 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 12- all of them agreeing and standing for a single cause- a cause of non-violence, in fact.

"So you all agree on this matter?" Coin asks, looking to all of them. Her gaze travels, calculating, across each of their faces, and suddenly all Nancy can think of are the explosions that ripped across the Nut and the Victor's Village, of the numerous deaths that Coin wasn't afraid to cause.

And it's in this instant that Nancy knows what Coin will do. She'll shut them down. She'll execute them all, and make it look like an accident. She'll cut through them like President Brenner did to Victors over the years, eliminating any possible threats to her reign.

And there's really only thing to do, to prevent all of this bloodshed. To stop these atrocities and horrors from taking place.

The Capitol has fallen. President Coin can't intimidate Nancy anymore. She already killed one dictator- she knows that at the end, President Brenner was fallible and far-too-human, just as Coin certainly must be.

"President Coin," Nancy says, "Do you know how easy it is to make a kill look like an accident?"

Coin arches an eyebrow, face carefully controlled. "Miss Wheeler?" she asks, in the same tone of voice as Brenner once did, and Nancy knows how this story ends. She knows the lengths to which Coin is willing to go, to craft a system that allows her to function how she wishes. Coin is a monster just as Brenner was, a very similar kind of monster if not the exact same breed of mutt.

There's a flash to Nancy's right and Enobaria is leaning forward, twirling a small, thin knife, no larger than a large toothpick, between her fingers like the country's most lethal toy. They were divested of their weapons before they entered the room, but everyone trained in Two's centre knows how to hold onto weapons, how to turn anything in a room into weapons, how to turn anything into a survival edge. "I think you do," Enobaria says, not flinching, gaze as mad as it's ever been. "You've made it happen before, haven't you?"

"You're going to try to murder us all," Claudius says, his infamously sharp tongue no longer held in place by a fear of Brenner. "For standing against you. Call it an accident. The cameras in this room- the lights aren't on. As insurance.

"When we die later, no one can say that it was in response to saying no," Murray says, letting out a small laugh.

"No," Lyme says, tone soft and dangerous, "Not like the Village, right?"

Nancy looks at Lyme, remembers the promise she made Lyme about taking justice for the deaths of Two. She remembers the moment that she'd first had to tell her Mentor in the hovercraft, the way that Enobaria's face had instantly closed off when she'd found out that Nero had died.

As Nancy looks around the room, none of the Victors look shocked. They are all familiar with the extents to which dictators and Presidents will go to in order to accomplish their goals, the innocents they are willing to let die.

No, instead, some of them look pissed.

Victor's Villages, for a number of them, are the only places they found comfort and solace in the years after their Games. Villages are the places where Victors have been able to live and heal and maybe not thrive, but at least find a sort of peace, however tenuous, in the years after the Games. Victor's Villages are the only places in Panem where Victors can be understood, where they can deal with their nightmares and guilt and recovery without the judgement of the general populace.

Victor's Villages are the place in the country closest to what could be considered sacred, for Victors. And to destroy that, to murder all of Two's Victors in their beds- that's not just a war crime and unnecessary, that's personal.

For this moment in time, Nero and Brutus and Emory and Devon and Artemisia and Odin and Callista and Ronan and Adessa and Rigel and all the rest, they're not just Two's. They don't just belong to Enobaria and Nancy and Lyme and Claudius.

They're every Victor's to hold onto. To claim as their own. To bring justice to.

"I've shot one dictator today," Nancy says, putting what she did to words. Her tone is sharp, and her decision may be reckless, but she knows that Coin is just as guilty as Brenner was. She knows that a living Coin is just as dangerous as Brenner was. "I'm not afraid of getting rid of another one. I don't think of us are."

To her credit, Coin doesn't flinch, facing down the infamous killers in the country, facing down Nancy, who just killed another President. She doesn't even blink. She faces them with a calculating gaze and a stony face.

But the thing is, she _should_ be flinching. 

The worst possible mistake in the world is putting a bunch of trained Careers and Victors into a room with you, even if you leave guards on the outside. The guards outside will keep people from getting in and out, but the people already inside the room, well, Nancy knows the people in this room. Even Katniss understands what it takes to survive, to accomplish your goals. 

Being a Victor means having escaped an Arena strictly by the fact that you put aside the greatest moral of all and decided to place your own survival and goals above other human life.

They've all killed children before. One more dictator is nothing, compared to the guilt of that.

"If it takes one last death to bring peace to our country, I have no remorse about making sure that it happens," Lyme says, cool and calm just as she has been for years of dealing with Sponsors, of trying her hardest to bring back as many kids as possible from that horrible Arena.

"And yet you vote against a Games," Coin says, not a tremble to her voice, but just the slightest of widening to the eyes that speak to her rapidly trying to calculate a way out. There's still a slight twist to her lips, a self-assurance that she'll make it out alive, but they _have_ instilled some doubt there.

"One last far from innocent death, I might clarify," Lyme says, tone as deadly as Enobaria's has ever been. "Just like President Brenner." 

Steve slips his rock pouch out from its pocket, and Nancy knows what kind of damage the rocks inside of it could do as a weapon. The fact that such a personal, almost sacred trinket could be used as a weapon doesn't really faze her- after all, District Two is the place where weapons and soldiers are forged, after all.

But in the end, the danger isn't from Nancy. It isn't from Lyme or Enobaria or Claudius or Cashmere or Finnick, no matter how they've been trained. It isn't from Murray or Haymitch, the oldest veterans among them. It isn't from Jonathan or Katniss, who Volunteered to kill. It isn't even from Steve, who _built_ a weapon to kill children. 

Coin reaches down to the table, to the glass of water sitting in front of her. She watches them, eyes calculating, over the rim of her glass, as she takes a long sip. She's probably trying to delay them, to stall them, to find some way out-

And then Coin slumps back in her seat without anyone doing anything, and for a moment Nancy's extremely confused. She looks around the table, at Enobaria, who still has her toothpick-weapon in hand, at Steve, who's still holding his rock pouch in his hand, at Claudius, who had looked poised to strike, and finds expressions of at least confusion, if not shock, on everyone's faces- save one.

"I can't believe that worked," Peeta says quietly, and Nancy blinks. Peeta Mellark, who only had a kill to his name in the Games due to an accident, who only became a Victor due to Katniss' protection, who only killed during the Rebellion in the heat of battle, never in cold blood- _he's_ the one who took down Coin?

"What'd you do, Peeta?" Steve asks, the first one to pick his jaw up from the table.

Peeta looks to Katniss and Haymitch. "You'd be surprised what you can slip into someone's food," he says.

"Holy shit, Mellark," Finnick says as Murray starts to laugh.

"What'd you use?" Katniss asks, staring at her boyfriend's face.

The corner of Peeta's lips quirks up into a pained half-smile. "What do you think? Nightlock." Then he looks to Nancy. "I had the feeling this was going to go south, too. Wanted to be prepared. It's going to be rather easy to blame poison on a Capitol counterrebel or assassin, just like Brenner died in the heat of battle."

Katniss reaches over and offers Peeta her hand, palm-up over the tabletop. Peeta's expression softens as he looks at her and takes her hand. 

Nancy sits back in her seat. Coin's dead. Brenner's dead. The Presidency is going to someone who won't use their position for cruelty and horror- they'll make sure of it.

This is a room of people who survived the worst of everything, who stayed alive despite it all, who fought against a Capitol and two Presidents who would use their power to destroy rather than rebuild.

Enobaria turns to Nancy, a glint in her eyes. "I knew you'd killed the bastard, no matter what you told the rebels," she says, almost sounding proud.

"It was only right," Nancy says, then looks at Steve, looks at Jonathan, and says, "I would have done it a million times over."

Enobaria nods, teeth curving into what is as close to a natural smile as Nancy's ever seen on her face. "Just as mad as ever. That's my Victor."

Nancy feels something warm blossom in her chest at the words. It's been years, but Enobaria's still her Mentor. Even with the recovery of her mother, Enobaria is still the mentor-figure that Nancy looks to most for praise. 

"Well, then, let's go tell the rebels what happened," Finnick says, looking done with everything. His hand has gravitated to the wound on his side, and he's looking a bit tired compared to usual. Today's battle has clearly taken a lot out of him.

"Do we tell?" Peeta asks, gaze flicking back to Coin's body. "Do we tell how she died?"

Nancy looks between Peeta and the body, thinks about President Brenner's body, which was in the upstairs office just a few hours ago, looks back at Peeta. "Here's my proposition," she says as she pushes back her seat from the table and stands. "We tell how she died. Poison, we think. Just collapsed in front of us. We had no idea what happened. Make it look as chaotic as possible, so that no one blamed it as us. Both her attack on the Village and idea of the Hunger Games could be decided by the populace to be either good or evil, if the populace is craving blood so much-"

"Two would be enraged about the Village," Lyme says, "You'd have Two on your side if that's what you decided to reveal about her, in order to make sure that she wasn't martyred."

"Is it so bad if she's martyred?" Murray asks, "I mean, I kinda like Paylor, who's pretty likely to be her successor. If no one _knows_ about Coin being behind the attack on Two, and they blame the Capitol for it, and see it as a bad thing, and no one has even considered a Capitol Hunger Games outside of this room, then no one will rally to those ideas in her name. We let her die at the Capitol's hands, then speak up against any of those ideas if they rise again."

Nancy blinks at him. "I think that's the most cogent I've ever seen you."

Murray smirks. "Don't get used to it, kid."

"So Peeta doesn't get the blame?" Katniss asks, brow furrowed just a bit as she works through the suggestion.

Murray shakes his head. "We blame the Capitol. Let the rebels throw stones wherever they want, and don't let the true source of either President Brenner or President Coin's deaths leave this room."

"That actually seems like a pretty sane idea to me," Cashmere says, "Shockingly, from Bauman, but it actually seems to work. Hands from everyone in favor?"

Every Victor in the room raises their hand, even if it's with a shrug from Haymitch and a moment of hesitation from Katniss as she puzzles through the implications of the decision.

"Alright, then," Cashmere says, "Looks like it's time for someone to scream and alert the rebels that they've got a dead President in here." She grins, lips curving up into a smile betraying a dark inside joke. "Any Volunteers?"

* * *

There’s a house, on the edge of the woods in District Seven. It’s close to the south side of the border between Seven and Two, about two miles from the edge of the former Victor’s Village, three miles from the nearest train station, and five miles from the nearest town center. The closest occupied house to it is Enobaria's, which is a mile away from them in the opposite direction of the train station.

The house is a decent size, just perfect for its occupants. It's smaller than their Village houses, with just a rather large bedroom, a small guest room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room, but it has a wraparound porch and windows as large as was architecturally sound, so plenty of ways to enjoy the outside.

It’s been five years since the Capitol fell, but Nancy could care less about the current politics of the new Capitol, where President Cashmere Vere was just elected after President Paylor finished out her term a few months ago.

(The populace loves their current First Gentleman just as much as they once did, though this time around there are far less news stories about who Finnick is dating and far more about his current outreach programs.)

Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve visit the Capitol twice a year, but this time it’s not for any Games. No, this time it’s to visit Kali and Robin, who live there, with Robin running a bakery smack-dab in the middle of the new Capitol.

They visit their friends and relatives around the country on a semi-decent basis- Mike and Will in Two, living down the street from Max and Jane in the same town as Karen and Holly; Lucas and Dustin, recently married and living in Four, in the house by the coast next to the house Finnick and Cashmere lived up until her election; Erica, attending her last years of school with Prim in Twelve, living with Katniss and Peeta in the meantime; Joyce and Hopper, still in Six, still living in Jonathan's old house in the Village; even Lyme and Claudius in Two, once every couple of years.

But for the majority of the year, the three of them live in peace and quiet together. Jonathan doesn’t have to leave every half-month, as there is no home to return to- his home is here, in the house with the big bed and the cozy fireplace and the sofa with the blankets that they either bought or made or knitted (it turns out that Steve's actually got a talent for knitting, and he actually has a pretty nice trading system going with some people in town to knit blankets in exchange for some goods).

Enobaria occasionally visits, once a month or so, and they enjoy having her over. She's rather happy living alone, away from everything, and they understand. Still, Steve has too much fun teasing her and Nancy likes talking to her and Jonathan likes trading off cooking for an evening- and sparring matches are always welcome, of course- so they don't let her embrace the full hermit lifestyle.

(And besides, she's always smiling when she visits, no matter how much she grumbles, so that's nice.)

The three of them live together, here. Jonathan cooks and Nancy hunts and Steve chops down firewood. They have a large stack of e-discs of Steve's favorite rom-coms and a generator for their small screen for comming relatives and watching his movies, but they're otherwise unconnected to any news or comm. They've had enough of propos and triggers to last a lifetime.

Some nights during the summer, fall, and spring, when there aren't as many insects out and it's cooler out, they sleep outside. They drag blankets outside and fall asleep under the stars with the sounds of nature lulling them to sleep. Here, there are no mutts, no cannons, no tributes' faces in the sky. This isn't an Arena, isn't a fight for survival- it's just their home.

And it's the way they like it. The life of celebrity is one they are more than done with. There's only one camera around their house, and it's Jonathan's, with his dark room in the shed a little distance out from their cabin. There are no paparazzi, no Gamemakers, just them and each other. 

Nancy is far too happy to curl up on the sofa with her husbands, a mug of hot tea in her hands and the knit blanket that her mother sent them spread across all three of their laps. Her feet are always a bit cold, living here in Seven, but Jonathan doesn't mind her tucking her toes up under his legs while Steve leans his head against her while they read books or the movie plays across their tiny screen. It's the way they pass a number of early mornings and afternoons and evenings, depending on what needs to be done- the three of them taking a half hour here or there to just _be_ casually together.

Someday they might go beyond their home here. If kids ever enter the picture, maybe someday, they'll move closer to town so that their child can go to school.

But for now, Nancy is content to leave her gun in the shelf under the bed, to live a peaceful life with her boys, to spend her nights curled up in bed next to windows large enough to let in all of the starlight and to spend her days working around the cabin and playing the piano they have tucked into their one guest room.

The Games are over. The war is over. All that is left is for Nancy to spend the rest of her life being happy with these two men she loves with all her heart.

She has set down her roots here, with Jonathan and Steve. She has built a life made of stone, where she cannot be ordered and dragged around. This life, with Jonathan cooking and Steve chopping and her hunting- it's hers to claim and expect to survive.

Nancy can't help but smile as Steve comes in from outside, taking off his boots by the door before beelining straight into the kitchen to pull Jonathan into a kiss as he kneads the dough for this week's bread. Jonathan is all too willing to set down the bread to return Steve's kiss, though he inevitably complains, "You interrupted me," as soon as Steve's lips leave his.

"Need my help, then?" Steve offers, "I _was_ raised in a bakery, after all."

Jonathan rolls his eyes. "You burn anything you try to bake," he says, though a fond smile quirks at his lips. "Go cook the meat Nancy brought in."

"Yes, sir," Steve says with a mock-salute to Jonathan, then turns to Nancy, who's sitting at the dining table reading a book that Max sent her, one of those old books they found in the Presidential Library from before the Dark Days. (_Percy Jackson, _it's called, and it's about a fight led by an intrepid young hero who's pissed off by the way things are. No wonder it was censored.) "Do I have my wife's permission to cook her squirrels?"

Nancy smirks. "Only if you give said wife a kiss."

Steve gives her a mock-groan. "Well, if I _must_." Then he heads over to her, bends down, and kisses her forehead. "There," he says, "Does that count?"

"Not quite," she teases, "But one on the lips would." Steve leans down and gives her a perfunctory kiss on the lips, and she rolls her eyes, dropping her bookmark into the pages of the book. "C'mere," she says, gesturing to him, and he leans in close enough for her to grab the front of his shirt and pull him into a deep kiss. After that's done, she lets go. "_Now_ you can cook the squirrels."

"Your wish is my command, darling," Steve says with a wink, and as he walks over to the stove she notices the pouch bouncing against his hip. Despite the fact that they live in Seven, all of them kept their wedding rocks and rings, holding on tight to what they gained in Thirteen.

Nancy watches as Steve and Jonathan joke and tease, occasionally kissing as they both work together in the kitchen. They move around each other like second nature, only ever bumping into each other on purpose as an affectionate sort of thing, a skill cultivated by years of living together. 

This is the life she dreamed about back in her apartment, years and years ago, before even Steve's Victory Tour. None of them have to leave to have sex with someone else, none of them are forced to return to another District, none of them have their photos and talents stolen, none of them feel crushed within their own home.

None of them will ever have to worry about the Games again. They will never have to worry about Mentoring or whoring themselves out to Sponsors or even their own child going into the Games.

No, instead, Nancy gets to be free and happy. She gets to live in the forest, under the stars unobscured by citylights or smog, with her husbands and all of the hope for the future.

"Nance," Steve says, and Nancy looks over at him and his bright, gentle smile, which fits so much better with a cabin here in Seven than it ever did in an apartment in the Capitol. "Mind grabbing the dishes so Johnny Boy and I have somewhere to put all the food?"

Nancy arches an eyebrow. "What will I get for it?" she asks even as she stands to help anyway.

"A kiss from me," Jonathan pipes in, and while Steve makes sputtering protests Nancy grins and pulls in her other husband for a kiss, making sure not to get any of the flour from the counter on her shirt- a gift sent from Cashmere for her birthday last year.

"I guess that's good enough," she says, because it is. It always will be. Nothing makes her happier in life than being able to be so casually affectionate with her husbands without any fear of repercussion from _any_ President, whether Brenner or Coin.

Nancy has dreamed of peace for so many years, and now she finally has it. This life is good enough, and it will always be _enough_, because she can't think of any way she could ever consider it less than the best possible life for her.

_The older I get I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject_

_There will be no grand choirs to sing_

_No chorus could come in_

_About two people sitting doing nothing_

_But I must confess I did it all for myself_

_I gathered you here_

_The loneliness never left me_

_I always took it with me_

_But I can put it down in the pleasure of your company_

_And if tomorrow it's all over_

_For a moment we were able to be still_

**-Florence + the Machine, _No Choir_**

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I'm not that good at action scenes, but I really tried, and I really hope that the more character-driven scenes (the Stoncy moments, Nancy killing President Brenner, and that epilogue) worked as well as the other fics in this series. I hope you all enjoyed the ending of this series. It's a bit hard to say goodbye to a 'verse I'm so fond and proud of, but I think I left it in a good place. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this series, as comments really do mean a lot to me as a writer!


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